It has been quite a while since I have got out my oil paints – maybe years! I had always loved painting with the rich and creamy oil paint but the length of the drying time was the reason I went to acrylic paint. I was always in a hurry to complete my works.

Don’t get me wrong, I love acrylic paint – they are so versatile and fast drying but OILS are just wonderful and the oil colour is so vibrant and the texture is so silky and organic – I have fallen in love with Oils again!

SO I will just have to get used to taking life at a slower pace when I work in Oil. Naturally I will continue to paint in acrylics as well.

Below is the first large oil painting I have finished since my return to this medium.

My little Gouldian Finch has been added to this week’s update of the Wandarrah team website – Home Decor section.http://www.australianwandarrah.com/shophomedecor.html
Please visit this site as it is full of fabulous art and hand made items from a heap of superb Australian Artists.

I have also included some images of other small Australian Bird paintings I did in this series for your consideration. Let me know what you think of them. Thanks.

I have been working on a very large canvas to go on the living room wall in our home. Our living room opens to the front balcony which is up among the treetops of a beautiful leopard tree and lovely poinsettia tree. It is such a lovely retreat to sit on the deck and be surrounded by waiving leafy branches away from the rest of the world.

So when I was trying to decide on a suitable subject matter for this large painting, it took quite a while. Did I want to do a colourful abstract? I wasn’t sure and as I don’t paint in a traditional style, a landscape was out. One day whilst reading out on the deck, it finally dawned on me, paint my treetops!

I took some photos looking upwards into my treetops and then played around with them in Photoshop until I settled on a suitable composition.

First sketch the tree trunk and branches.

Then I had to paint in the tree canopy and all of the leaves. This took quite a while until I was happy with the composition.

It was quite a task to hang this large painting as it had to be hung in a very high position above our staircase. This involved ladders, tressels and the help of a builder; however it is finally up and looks great. What do you think?

I have continued with my experimentation with geometric patterns in my art. It has been interesting and a little fun.

I just completed this piece called Organic Geometric. I attempted to mix my organic style with geometric patterns. The subject is is based on items found in the garden – ferns, flowers and wood. I decided to use different sized pieces of small branches from my own garden to create a pattern down one side of the artwork. This I did by dipping the ends of the twigs into the paint and then stamping them onto the canvas. The resulting orange circles show the growth rings inside each of the branches, which I felt made a nice touch.

I found I had to hold my self back to ensure that my organic style of painting did not take over the geometric patterns however I am quite pleased with the end result.

I will definitely continue to include geometric patterns in future work.